HOOKING UP

Tinder Will Start Verifying Celebrity Profiles

Celebrities famous enough to warrant verification on a dating app, but B-list enough to think that’s a good idea are just like you. Tinder’s big SXSW surprise is that the no-frills dating app will introduce verification for its apparently burgeoning class of celebrity users. CEO and co-founder Sean Rad told The Hollywood Reporter that stars like Ashton Kutcher (presumably pre-engagement to Mila Kunis), Lindsay Lohan, and (wait for it) Jamie Kennedy were having a difficult time getting play on Tinder because other users assumed their accounts were phony. (Rad himself even had a hard time convincing people he was the founder of Tinder.) Lohan, who is said to have recently left a list of her celeb hookups in a hotel bar, is a Tinder user who once found her own brother on the app.

The folks behind Tinder insist that they never meant for the app to be used as a dating service and certainly don’t see their product as a hookup facilitator. It will be interesting to see if the involvement of verified celebrities moves the app any closer to its stated goal of being a “social discovery platform.” One of Tinder’s official mottos, after all, is “It's like real life, but better.”